When small forward Richard Jefferson first arrived in San Antonio last summer via trade with Milwaukee, his entrance was met with the shout-from-the-rooftops pomp and circumstance befitting a visiting king.

A year later, Jefferson’s decision to re-sign with the Spurs — after opting out of a guaranteed $15.2 million for a shot at free agency — barely merited a whisper.

The Spurs announced Jefferson’s return in a spartan news conference Wednesday on a vacant concourse of the AT&T Center. The man of the hour didn’t even attend.

Even without the hoopla of a year earlier, general manager R.C. Buford considered it a bottom-line banner day for the Spurs.

“We wouldn’t have been as good a team had Richard decided to play someplace else,” Buford said. “That’s the benefit to us.”

If nothing else, Jefferson’s second season with the Spurs should come without the sticker shock of his first, when he was the team’s fifth-leading scorer at a salary second only to Tim Duncan’s. Jefferson’s new four-year, $38.9-million deal is good for his own pocketbook in the long-term, and good for the Spurs’ 2010-11 payroll in the short.

All along, Jefferson’s agent, Todd Eley, said his client chose to enter free agency in order to secure a multi-year contract in lieu of hitting the market next summer, when the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement expires and salary rules will be reshuffled.

“I think we were able to accommodate what we were looking to do and meet his goals as well,” Buford said.

In the end, the Spurs needed Jefferson as much as Jefferson needed the Spurs.

With the free-agent pool at small forward dwindling by the day, and with the Spurs limited to just the $2.4 million left over from the mid-level exception to woo outside free-agents, re-signing Jefferson became a must.

Jefferson, who turned 30 last month, is due to collect $8.4 million next season, nearly a 50 percent pay cut compared with what he could have earned. He will more than recoup the $15.2 million he gave up over the first three years of the new deal, which pay a combined $27 million.

The 6-foot-7 Jefferson comes back to the Spurs at a cut rate after laboring through one of the most frustrating seasons of his career. He averaged 12.3 points, the most for a Spurs small forward in 14 seasons, but hardly a number that justified the hype that accompanied him to San Antonio.

A veteran of the Princeton motion offense, Jefferson struggled to adapt to the Spurs’ pick-and-roll schemes, while the other Spurs struggled to adapt to him.

The Spurs believe Jefferson’s value wasn’t accurately projected in his statistics — “I think he played more efficiently than his numbers might have shown,” Buford said — and remain hopeful that he might become more comfortable in his second go-round in the system.

“I think he’ll have a better year next year,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “He’ll be a lot more ready to understand whatever we might do.”

Jefferson’s restructured deal should lessen the Spurs’ luxury tax burden next season, with an outside shot at erasing it entirely, after the team paid a club-record $8.8 million tax bill last season.

“It helps us build our team,” Buford said. “There might have been some opportunities we might have been limited with under different circumstances.”

For Jefferson, Wednesday’s announcement represents a second chance to make a first impression. He was barely in town 24 hours, just long enough to pass a physical and sign his contract, and was back on a plane before the start of the afternoon’s news conference.

The day was low-key and under-the-radar, ensuring there will be less hype for Jefferson to live up to this season.